The governmnets plan to excavate and create a lakh farm ponds in the district can be termed nothing short of a herculean effort, especially so because the government wants to complete the task in less than four months.
The Anantapur district collector Kona Sasidhar, explaining the strategy of the government said that the plan was to ensure that a farm pond of either a size of 10 x 10 x 10 or 5 x 5 x 5 metres was dug at an interval of nor more than 200 metres, covering not less than 25 lakh acres of land.
“The size of the pond would be 10 cubic metres in a five acre plot and 5 cubic metres in a two acre plot. The District Water Management Authority would act as the nodal implementation agency of the plan,” said Mr Kona Sasidhar.
The plan shall be to ensure availability of not less than two lakh hectares of water in each of these ponds, whereafter rain guns - rain guns are custom manufactured hoses with a high pressure spray gun with a great reach and the ability to recreate a rain like equitable spray of water - to provide periodic wettings to groundnut crops preventing them from dying due to prolonged spells of lack of rain.
Explaining the strategy of how the district administration planned to complete the task before March 22nd 2016,
Mr Sasidhar said that a coordinated effort of the entire district adminsitration along with the help of NREGS workers and public at large, a plan was being made to dig 25,000 farm ponds in just a day in the first half of December.
On the other hand, saying that the state government had released Rs 600 crores towards the task at hand, Mr Sasidhar said that he had directed officials to come up with firm proposals for excavation of farm ponds along with lining and rivetment of the same wherever the need be.
“I have directed them to ensure they send not less 300 such proposals to me for administrative approval everyday,” said Mr Sasidhar.
However, Y.V. Malla Reddy, director of AF Ecology centre at Anantapur, credited for forming and lobbying for the strategy of excavating a farm pond for every two acres for several years now, has a word of caution for the government.
“If the government can also provide for compulsory lining of the farm ponds, the programme shall certainly be a successful one in considerably mitigating the problems of prolonged dry spell,” said Mr Malla Reddy.
